Irrigations systems have been designed around the concept of a control box or a controller and a valve box. The control box or a controller turns “on” and “off” each of the solenoid valves in the valve box at desired time intervals. The input of each valve is connected to the water supply line. The output of each valve is connected to downstream pipes or conduits that meander or run through the corresponding irrigation zone.
Most systems must utilize a plurality of (slave) valves in which each (slave) valve controls a separate watering zone that has a plurality of sprinkler heads located along a conduit which extends within the respective watering zones. Due to the frictional flow losses within the distribution pipe or conduit that restrict the volume of water that can be delivered, if all the sprinkler heads were activated at the same time (i.e., simultaneously supplied with water pressure), the delivered water pressure for each sprinkler head would vary accordingly. That is, the frictional flow losses would cause the delivered water pressure for the downstream sprinkler heads to generally be insufficient. Thus, the sprinkler system would fail to operate as designed, e.g., the associated sprinkler heads would insufficiently water all of the designated areas to be watered.
In an attempt to address this, systems were designed having a plurality of slave valves, in which each slave valve controls a plurality of sprinkler heads of a respective watering zone. However, in order to provides such control, each slave valve needs electronic wiring and thus, each slave valve cannot efficiently be located near each respective zone. However, since the (slave) valve must be located proximate to the controller, a large amount of additional trenches and distribution pipe or conduit must be installed in order to complete the irrigation system. The Inventors noted that if the valves could be mounted remotely or adjacent the watering zone, a substantial amount of trenching and distribution pipe or conduit could be saved thereby reduce overall cost of install for an irrigation system.
In addition, the Inventors also noted that if the plurality of (slave) valves were able to communicate with the main controller in a wireless fashion, this would minimize the electrical wiring required for installation of an irrigation system and further reduce the overall cost of installing an irrigation system.